2010-2011 NEWSLETTER art & art department chair update // 2 history sage art center // 3 seniors in art history // 5 ROCHESTER.EDU/COLLEGE/AAH senior thesis exhibitions // 6 interview: david walsh // 9 hartnett gallery // 11 faculty updates // 14 visual & cultual director’s update // 17 studies interview: rachel haidu // 18 ROCHESTER.EDU/COLLEGE/AAH/VCS theatres of memory // 21 faculty updates // 23 the “on-film” series // 25 student updates //26 in the news // 30 etc. awards // 31 ORGANIZATION: ALICIA GUZMAN COPY EDITING: JANET BERLO DESIGN & LAYOUT: JENN BRATOVICH 1 THE DEPARTMENT OF ART & ART HISTORY department chair update by allen topolski art & art history department chair In my studio I consciously surround myself with objects from which I can draw both meaning and material for my art production. The accumulation there, in some ways, is artifice compared to what naturally occurs around me at my desk cover of the American Photo magazine at Sage Art Center. As a consequence is by Claire Cohen, an Art History major of my daily routine, coffee cups, memos, and Studio Art minor graduating this tool parts, notes, and CDs silt up around year. The postcards announcing the Senior me. Striving to recall all the events and Thesis exhibitions remind me of rich accomplishments of the year, I need only and convivial events in Hartnett, the Art shift my focus from my keyboard to the and Music Gallery and the Hungerford desk surface to be reminded. Building. (I taught the Senior Seminar this spring, so those postcards also remind The rolled T-shirts with a printed image me of late-night installations, painful of a groundhog overshadowing Sage are critiques and weeping). This year, we are set aside as gifts from the department graduating the largest class of majors in to any special guests we might have; the Department’s history: 18 studio artists Drive-By-Press printed them in the and 13 art historians. mobile printmaking studio with which they visited campus in the fall semester. A failed proposal to the Dean, residue Nicki Ditch’s collage sits adjacent to of my Caramel Macchiato, empty them, awaiting framing. A special grant Tupperware and a binder from the class I from The College and the Provost’s office taught last semester only prove that this made possible the purchase of student archive implies no hierarchy—only the work that will be distributed throughout breadth of endeavors undertaken, and campus this summer, and Nicki’s is one perhaps some end-of-semester lethargy. of these. An outdated instructional video on ‘new’ media awaits the arrival of Cary All the best in the year ahead! Peppermint, the new artist hired by our department. He will join the faculty in Allen the fall, at which time he may or may not allen topolski find humor in my gift. The image on the art & art history department chair 2 SAGE ART CENTER home of the studio arts program by stephanie ashenfelder studio coordinator A language has developed here, fondly relationships between people are built here. referred to as ‘Sage Speak.’ If you are The building blocks of this community are fluent, you know where to find “The inclusiveness, trust and…well, candy. Meat Locker,” “The Fake Meat Locker” and “The Black Room,” and you likely Inclusiveness. Sage Art Center was know what to do if “Optimus Prime” is built in 1962, inspired by Crown Hall on misbehaving or if the “Situation” is out the IIT campus in Chicago. The celebrated of ink. The fact that Sage Art Center has modern architect, Mies Van der Rowe, its own language is important. It is an indication that in addition to art, authentic CONTINUED ... Students fill Sage’s staircase with aluminum foil and CDs for the new course Issues in Advanced 3D: Installation and Sound Art. 3 A sampling of work that can be seen during a typical walk through of Sage. visit sage art center stay connected to the events that make life at Sage interesting & exciting: http://sageartcenter.com built Crown Hall in 1956 at the height of works in an environment where trust is minimalist architecture. Sage echoes the the foundation. A space without walls and minimalism of Crown Hall in its glass and with glass windows means you are always steel façade and its open, expansive interior. on display. Naturally, there are moments Mies strived toward “architecture with a you would rather this not be the case. We minimal framework of structural order are all exposed because of the nature of the balanced against the implied freedom of architecture and because of what we do as free-flowing open space”. While the open artists. It is necessary that when you come floor plan at Sage might mean a Drawing to Sage, you trust that you can put yourself and a Painting course meet at the same on display and will not be judged unfairly. time a mere 25 yards apart with no walls in between, it also means students in Candy. I have a candy dish on my desk all studio courses bump into each other to share. There is a printer on the front (sometimes literally). Courses and ideas desk for everyone to share. We share naturally cross-pollinate. A building classrooms and shops. If we wanted to without walls is inclusive. we could carve up Sage with dividers and walls so we wouldn’t have to share quite Trust. We ask students to put something so much. According to Mies, Crown Hall of themselves in their studio art in ways was the “clearest embodiment” of his belief they may not have to in other courses. that “structure is the essence of building.” Students have the courage to hang some Here the clearest embodiment of Sage, the part of themselves up on the wall and inclusiveness, the trust, and the sharing is then have their peers critique it. This only because of those who inhabit it. 4 UNDERGRADUATE ART HISTORY seniors in art history Self-portrait, Claire Cohen, American Photo On Campus, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2011 Claire Cohen recently was the runner up in the Fine Art category of American Photo’s “Go Pro” contest and is featured on the cover of the American Photo On Campus April Issue. She is also featured on the contest’s website http://popphoto.com/goprowinners. Emily Klie will be attending Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, CA next fall to pursue a M.F.A. in Criticism and Curatorial Practice. This year, she was also an Art Director for the annual Art Awake festival, which had over 500 art submissions and 1000 visitors. Amelia Ann Titus is graduating with High Distinction, completing a thesis on the artist Chris Burden and the hardcore music performances of 1970’s Los Angeles. She interned at the Memorial Art Gallery in the fall and is currently working for Folio Literature Management Agency in New York City. She hopes to pursue a career in publishing. 5 UNDERGRADUATE STUDIO ART senior thesis exhibitions Jenn Bratovich received a research in biomedical sciences at Rockefeller grant from the Susan B. Anthony Institute University in New York City. for Gender & Women’s Studies to complete her thesis work, clumsy/necessary. Daniel Neuner’s thesis exhibit, Closer This series of self-portrait photographs Than We Notice, explores personal history estranges the process of dressing – or and memorializing the mundane through undressing – to explore inbetweenness, photography. awkwardness, and the permissions of looking. Sarah Rajotte’s thesis is based on a series of abstracted self-portraits conveying Jeremy Ferris’s The End and the themes of isolation and relatedness. Beginning of Constellation is an exercise Illuminated mechanical figures interact in unmediated creation and a reflection within the empty space they occupy; each upon the incidental results of this process. figure is constrained by specific challenges, Along with his BA, Jeremy will also be which are simultaneously humorous and receiving a BS in Brain & Cognitive extremely painful. Sciences. Cecilia Roxana Ramos is originally Liz Fleischman’s thesis is titled, from Peru; her artwork is inspired by her Remembering the Moment. “I feel closest to connection with her culture and roots. For my friends in the moments that we enjoy her thesis, titled Narrative Threads, she a comfortable silence together. However, created a series of Khipus (Incan recording it is difficult to keep these memories in devices) of her dreams and nightmares my mind. This show is an attempt to bringing back to life a long forgotten remember the important moments that artifact. define my friendships.” Christine Rose’s thesis Surround Emily Grzybowski is interested in deals with a variety of themes, including the way we define relationships and connections between the intangible and our position within them. Her work the physical, the ways in which we interact investigates those ambiguous spaces like with our world and with one another, and intimacy, the difference between self and the processes of making. She employs other, or how the same conversation can methods such as bookbinding, spinning, leave two people in completely different papermaking, and knitting, inviting the places. Next year she will pursue her PhD audience to interact with the work. 6 Thesis work by Emily Grzybowski (top), Christine Rose (right), and Jenn Bratovich (bottom). Nicole Suchy’s work examines isolated moments and the failed attempts to reconstruct, alter, or preserve memory, absence, loss, and miscommunication. Often through distance, relationships are obsessively recreated solidifying all of the moments we fear losing. Through prints and artists books, Suchy explores the secrets and struggles lying behind objects, moments, and words. CONTINUED ... 7 Above Illustrations by Jeremy Ferris for the 2011 Senior Thesis promotional poster.